Jackdir’s Guide to Shield Walling a Minstrel in the Ettenmoors
Before I start I’d just like to say this is the guide/technique I personally prefer. It may not be the best in some eyes or the only method but it is just how I like to do it.
Minstrels
Possibly the most important characters in an ettenmoors raid are the healers and because I believe them to be better healers in ettenmoors, especially minstrel healers.
Before Guardians had their damage per second improved markedly with overpower and recent tweaks, the old school Guardian’s main job in the ettenmoors was to keep the minstrel in his fellowship alive.
The principle way of doing this is to use a skill called Shield Wall. This skill transfers the damage that otherwise would have been inflicted on the Minstrel* to the Guardian.
It can be activated at any time including when in combat but a recent change means it can only be activated if you are holding a one handed weapon and a shield.
*Note I have used Minstrel as an example but any class can be shield walled.
When to activate
Some Guardians prefer to activate the skill once the Minstrel starts taking damage. The principle reason for this decision is that the Shield Wall skill is very power hungry so the later it is activated the less power used. A Guardian with poor power regeneration and/or low power reserves will find it hard to Shield Wall all the way through battles.
Activating this late is risky due to the quickness that characters die in the ettenmoors. The Minstrel may be dead before you apply your skill. He/She will also switch healing to himself to survive initially, therefore not healing anyone else that is going down. Late activation generally induces panic which isn’t good.
I have a decent power regeneration build so out of combat I can easily maintain my power reserves at full. For this reason I prefer to activate the skill before we enter combat. As a rule and unless we are stood outside a freep controlled TR waiting for the leader to come back from a bio break, I have it on all the time.
Minstrel Positioning
One of the most important factors in surviving a battle is where the minstrel stands. In PvE raids etc the common thought is to stand away from the battle. This is not the case in the ettenmoors. If the Minstrel is positioned away from the general melee, he/she will easily be spotted by the creep leader visually or any other creeps for that matter. This will encourage either RAT targeting or harassment by other creep players. We want to avoid the Minstrel being targeted at all if possible.
The other serious risk of standing outside the main melee area is being attacked by a Warg Pack. There are Warg Packs that exist purely to roam the back and sides of a freep raid in stealth looking for detached players, especially healers. These can be deadly to the Minstrel and Guardian combination. An experience Warg Pack with sufficient numbers can follow a certain chain of skills that make it very difficult for the Guardian and the Minstrel to survive. I am not going to describe these techniques as I don’t play a Warg so it is not in my interest to broadcast ways of killing myself. It is sufficient to say we want to avoid being attacked by a Warg Pack if at all possible.
The ideal place for the Minstrel to stand while healing a long battle is just within the range of the main champs area of effect damage skills. Obviously this is difficult to do precisely but a couple of meters behind the main melee characters is a good place to aim for. Behind is better because you will avoid the aoe of the forward creep players but even in front is better than being detached on your own. This position will also hide you from being visually indentified by the creeps because of the general chaos immediately in front of you. The Minstrel needant worry about getting caught by the odd creep blow because the Guardians shield wall will easily deal with this.
However the reasons above pale because the number one reason to stand within the melee aoe of your players is that any Warg Packs about are highly unlikely to attack you. A champs aoe is deadly to a Warg and entering a melee brawl is against all the principles a Warg has been taught.
Many minstrels I have encountered move an unnecessary amount of time. Minstrels can not heal when moving so more moving means less healing. I prefer them to camp a good spot and only move once that spot becomes not good anymore.
Guardian Positioning
Personally I prefer to stand on top of my minstrel for three reasons. The main reason is so that I don’t loose them. It is incredibly easy to have no idea where your minstrel has disappeared to within seconds of him/her being stood next to you. With the utter chaos of a battle around you, a small hobbit healer can literally disappear into the crowd whilst perhaps running to revive someone.
To counter this problem I keep my healer as my target by default. This gives me a big bright circle on the ground to follow. If I should loose sight of my healer whilst targeting a creep I right click on his image in the UI and select follow. This will move me either to the minstrel directly if within a short distance or at least in the right direction towards him/her where I can look for them easier.
Some might say that whilst you have your healer targeted and you are not contributing to the battle. This is a fair comment in terms of dps but I believe you need to choose what your primary role is within the raid. I look at it like this. A shield walling Guardian’s job is to heal. Sounds funny but you are the second component of a healing unit and therefore you should devote most of your resources to making sure the healing unit heals to maximum effect. If I leave my minstrel to contribute to the battle there is a high risk of loosing them outside the Shield Wall range with the inevitable consequences that they die. Secondly dps requires power and power conservation is essential if you are to Shield Wall throughout an entire battle especially in keeps where getting out of combat in order to regenerate can be difficult. A Guardian needs to be power self sufficient because the minstrel will need any power the lore masters can give.
The second reason to stand on top of your minstrel is to hide them. I know of some minstrels that don’t like to be completely obscured and like to be able to look around. In these cases I just stand very close to them but if your minstrel is happy to heal from the UI and watch the mini map for when to move then you can completely obscure them from view. This means that they are extremely unlikely to be targeted visually. They will only be targeted if the creeps tab through their available targets. If your minstrel doesn’t show as an available target in the first few tabs it is likely that the creep RAT will just pick someone else. This will lessen the amount of times you are RAT targeted. Less times means there is more chance your best skills have recovered from their cool downs before you need to use them again.
The third reason to stand on top of your minstrel is to defend them by fighting out of trouble. Occasionally a small group of creeps not following RAT, an individual or a creep NPC will start to attack your minstrel directly. In these cases I will take their aggro and just beat them down. Creeps will usually give up fairly quickly once they know that the Minstrel is not going down and they are taking damage. NPC’s are more of an inconvenience because they are wasting your power reserves.
Power
Why is power important? Because when your power bar gets to zero the Shield Wall turns off and goes into cool down. Plus you need to regenerate power to turn it back on. Inevitably this happens at the worst possible moment and your minstrel is left unprotected right at the moment they need it most.
When not RAT targeted my main preoccupation is where my next power top up will come from. Whilst out of combat power isn’t a problem but once in combat and using skills power can be scarce. Fortunately Guardians have had various tweaks to skills and new skills added that make it possible to constantly top up power. Any creep that comes into range I will quickly switch to target them and use the skill Take to Heart. This will give me a decent power top up. When this skill is on cool down I will use Thrill of Danger. If I get a block reaction at any time I will use the Catch a Breath skill because when traited this skill also gives 400 power. Failing all the above I will use a power pot always trying to maintain power at about 75-100% of the power bar.
RAT Targeted
RAT targeted means the creep leader has targeted you in his chat and the entire creep raid is about to descend on you and your minstrel with the sole purpose of killing you as quickly as possible.
Firstly don’t run or try to escape. It looks cheap and will ineffective. What you are trying to achieve is time. Ultimately you and your minstrel would die if the RAT targeting continued indefinitely but it doesn’t. The longer you stay alive you will be effectively tanking the creep raid. This will give an opportunity for your high dps freep players to kill the creeps. The longer it takes for you to die the more likely the creep leader is to switch the RAT target away from you as his players will be dying without any return.
I will be in Guardian’s Defence Stance anyway. As soon as I am aware that I am the RAT target I apply the Guardian’s Pledge skill. This skill vastly increases the Guardian’s parry chance. This will slow down the rate at which my morale is decreasing. At this point my minstrel should turn all healing to his Guardian. If I’m lucky other healers might switch to me also and I may receive some cross healing. Next I use the Warriors Heart skill firstly as a heal but also because it increases my morale pool by one third to >10,000. This will give the minstrels and other healers a larger pool to fill therefore it is less likely of an over heal that is wasted. Because I have used the Guardian’s Pledge skill I will definitely have received a block reaction so the Catch a Breath skill is available and I will use this next. A quick morale pot and then I need to decide whether the situation warrants using two skills with long cool downs. Firstly the Deep Breath skill will reset the cool downs on Guardian’s Pledge and Warriors Heart which means I can use them again. If all else is still failing I will use the great elf only skill of Eldar’s Grave. It is just a shame that Eldar’s Grace has a one hour cool down. By this time the creep leader should have switched the RAT to some other sole or a least be about to.
Hopefully both the minstrel and myself come through the ordeal alive a well to continue healing the rest of the raid.
